{"id":18595,"date":"2015-12-22T19:21:01","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T03:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=18595"},"modified":"2015-12-22T19:21:01","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T03:21:01","slug":"american-book-review-100-best-first-lines-novels-moby-dick-tops-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=18595","title":{"rendered":"American Book Review: 100 Best First Lines from Novels – Moby Dick Tops List"},"content":{"rendered":"

100 Best First Lines from Novels, according to American Book Review<\/h2>\n
\n

\"moby_dick\"<\/a>Here are the top 10 from American Book Review:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Call me Ishmael. \u2014Herman Melville, Moby-Dick<\/em> (1851)<\/span><\/p>\n

2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. \u2014Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice<\/em>(1813)<\/span><\/p>\n

3. A screaming comes across the sky. \u2014Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow<\/em> (1973)<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buend\u00eda was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. \u2014Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/em> (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. \u2014Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita<\/em> (1955)<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. \u2014Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina<\/em> (1877; trans. Constance Garnett)<\/span><\/p>\n

7. riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs. \u2014James Joyce, Finnegans Wake<\/em> (1939)<\/span><\/p>\n

8. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. \u2014George Orwell, 1984<\/em> (1949)<\/span><\/p>\n

9. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. \u2014Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities<\/em> (1859)<\/span><\/p>\n

10. I am an invisible man. \u2014Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man<\/em> (1952)<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Here is my personal favorite. The opening lines from the novel: \u00a0“The Last Good Kiss” by James Crumley:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

“When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside Sonoma California, drinking the heart out of a fine spring afternoon.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

To find out the other 90 opening lines from novels click here: \u00a0American Book Review.<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These are the 100 Best First Lines from Novels, according to American Book Review. The novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville is number one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[2042],"class_list":["post-18595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips-trivia-and-tidbits","tag-books"],"yoast_head":"\nAmerican Book Review: 100 Best First Lines from Novels - Moby Dick Tops List<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"These are the 100 Best First Lines from Novels, according to American Book Review. 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